Wano is a
Papuan language
The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non-Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogra ...
of the Indonesian New Guinea Highlands.
Phonology
As well as the
monophthong
A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...
s described above, Wano also has seven
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s: .
[
]
Allophony
The voiced plosive
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
s // and // are imploded word-initially and intervocalically.[ ]
When a nasal occurs before //, // becomes a prenasalized voiced plosive µb Similarly, when a nasal occurs before // or //, they become, respectively, ¿dand µ‘É¡[ ]
//, //, //, and //'s allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
, µ‘É¡become labialized before //, with // becoming [].[ ]
The Consonant cluster, sequences /tj/ and /dj/ become the palatal fricatives / /.[
]
See also
*Duvle-Wano Pidgin
References
*
Dani languages
{{papuan-lang-stub